Automatic feed device



Oct. 11, 1932. J, 5 HARDIMAN 1,882,578

AUTOMATIC FEED DEVICE Filed May 30, 1929 2 Sheets-Sheet l wy/jamm AUTOMATIC FEED DEVICE Filed May 5Q, 1929 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 F I LBJ Q3 avwewto'c Jamey J. #0709770 33 All? adieu wen;

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' discs from a roll of'material.

Patented Oct. 11, 1932 UNITED STATES "PATENT, OFFICE JAMES s. HARDIMAN, or nrnenwoon, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR To ANCHOR CAP & CLOSURE conronarrou, or one ISLAND CITY, NEW YORK, AcoRPoRArmN on NEW YORK AUTOMATIC FEED DEVICE Application filed. May 30, 1929. Serial No. 367,167.

The present invention relates to feeding devices and more particularly to mechanisms for feeding rolls of material.

In the manufacture of certain types of closure caps, thin discs of flexible material are inserted in the caps as liners to prevent contact of the contentsof thecontainer with the metal of the cap. In applying these liners it has been found convenient to stamp the These discs may be stamped out at a rate of sixty or more a minute, the material being fed with a jerky motion to the stamping mechanismv If there is no slack between the-feeding mechanism and the roll, the resistance caused by the momentum of the roll, which is quite bulky due to the thickness of the material, interferes with the feeding operation and, in some cases, causes so much slack that the material drags on the floor. This is objectionable because the excess material is in the way of the operators and is also likely to become contaminated by. contact with the floor. In some cases, the strain put upon thedelicate feeding mechanism may damage it or damage the ma terial being fed.

The present invention aims to overcome the difiiculties of the priorart by providing an inexpensive and effective mechanism for maintaining substantially the same amount of slack at all times. It will be understood that manyof the features of the inventionare applicable to feeding mechanisms generally irrespective of whether they are used in the manufacture of closure caps or otherwise.

An object of the invention is to providean effective uniform feed for sheet material and the like.

Another objectof the'invention is to provide a simple mechanism responsive to'the slack in the sheet material to control the feed of the roll of material to a suitable machine. Another object of the invention is to provide a pawl and ratchet mechanism having -means responsive to the slack in the cardboard for rendering the pawl ineffective for a portion of its stroke.

Another object of the inventioni's to provide a feeding mechanism particularly applicable to machines for applying liners to closure caps. V I Other and further objects of the invention will be obvious upon an understanding of the illustrative embodiment about to be described or will beindicated in the appended'claims, and various advantages not referred to herein will occur to one skilled in the art upon employment of the invention in practice.

' preferred embodiment of the invention has been chosen for purposes of illustration and description and is shown in the accompanying drawings, forming a part of the specification, wherein F'g. 1 is a side elevational view illustrat: i g the. operation of the preferred embodiment;

mechanism;

Fig. 8 is a sectional view along the line 33 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 is a plan view taken along the line 44 of Fig. 2 showing a portion of the mechanism; I

Fig. 5 is a side elevational view of a portion of'the mechanism illustrating a modification of the feed; and v Fig. 6 isa sectional view along the line 6 -6 of Fig. 5. 7

Referring again to the drawings, there is shown a portion of a machine 1, which may be used for various purposes but preferably operates to receive a strip 2 of flexible material such as paper or cardboard which may be fed intermittently. As shown in the drawings, there is a reciprocat ng feed member 4 which moves the strip 2 forward a predetermined amount upon each oscillation thereof. The amount of material which is fed will depend, of course, upon the usage to which Fig. 2 is an end elevational view of the it is put. In applying liners to articles such as closure caps, the strip is moved forward three or four inches at a time.

It has been found convenient to feed such a strip from a roll 5 which is comparatively large in order to minimize the replacing operations. As each roll is consumed another has to be substituted. Any attempt to feed the roll directly to the machine causes the reciprocating feed 4 to snatch the paper or cardboard at intervals which impairs the feeding operation and frequently unrolls an excessive amount of material which drags upon the floor due to the momentum. of the relatively'large roll 5.

In order to provide a steady, uniform feed for the sheet material, there is provided a pulley 6 on the roll 5 and a pulley 7 loosely mounted on the shaft 8 of the machine-1.

These pulleys may be operatively connected by the belt 9. The pulley 7 is preferably driven by means of a pawl and ratchet mechanism connected directly to the drive for the reciprocating feed 4. The latter may be drivenfinany suitable manner but is herein shown driven by means of an eccentric 10 connected to a shaft 11 by means of an eccentric rod 12 and bearing 14. A bell crank 15 is loosely mounted at its center on the shaft 8 and has its lower end connected to a shaft 13 through bearings 16 with its upper end pivotally attached to the reciprocating feed 4. In this manner, the eccentric reciprocates the rod 14 ,to 'oscillate-the' bell-crank 15 and givea reciprocating motion to the feed 4. Mounted also on the shaft 13, which reciprocates back and forth with the eccentric rod, is a lever 17 having a seriesof apertures 18 at its lower end for engagement with ameniber 19, attached to the framework of the machine, for pivoting its lower end atone of the apertures. The upper end of the lever 17 is pivotally attached by means of a bolt 20 to a sleeve 21 loosely mounted on the shaft 8 and held in position by the collar 22. The upper part of the sleeve has mounted thereon a pawl 24 pivoted by means of the pin 25 and held in its downward position by a leaf-spring 26. The pawl is adapted to engage a ratchet wheel 27 integral with the pulley 7, as shown more particularly in Fig. 3. Upon each reciprocation the pawl 24 engages the ratchet wheel 27 to rotate the pulley 7 and the roll '5 a predetermined amount.

In order to control the feed of the roll responsively to the feed of the material by the reciprocating mechanism 4, there is pro vided a guard 29 integral with a sleeve 30 mounted between the pulley 7 and the ratchet wheel 27. The guard 29 has a laterally extending flange projecting over the upper part of theratchet wheel directly under the pawl 24 to support the pawl out of engage ment with the ratchet wheel. The pawl slides upon the guard while in its ineffective position. The position of the guard is determined by means of a rod 31 attached to the guard by a pin 32 with its free end having a roller34 mounted thereon in engagement with the strip of material 2. As the slack in the paper decreases, the rod 31 moves from the position shown in Fig. 1 to that shown in dotted lines in the same figure, and the guard 29 moves from the full line position to the dotted line position.

It will be observed that the higher the roller 34, that is, the less the amount of slack in the strip 2, the further back is the guard 29, thereby'increasing the effective stroke of the pawl 24. Preferably, when the rod 31 is at its highest position, the guard 29 is ina full stroke in engagement with the ratchet wheel,and when the guard is in its lowest position the pawl is ineffective, riding for its full stroke on the guard 29, and does not engage the ratchet wheel 27. In order to substantially balance therod 31, a supplementary rod 35 is attached thereto at 36 with a weight 37 for counterbalancing the weight of the roller 34 and the end of the rod 31.

In Fig. 5, a slightly different form of construction is shown wherein a pair of depending arms or levers38 are pivoted to the shaft of the roll 5 and have at their lower ends a pair of rollers 39 geared together by the intermeshing gears 40. The two arms may beheld together by means of springs 41. The paper or otherj'material of the roll 5 passes between thetwo rolls and is fed by the rotationof the rolls driven from a pulley 42 'connected by the belt 9 to the pulley 7, as described hereinbefore.

In the operation of the device, a suitable roll of paper or other material is mounted upon the spindle or roll 5 and threaded into the feeding mechanism of the machine 1. Sufficient slack is created between the ma-- chine and the'roll to permit the roller 34 to rest on the paper. The eccentric drives the feeding mechanism 4 by means ofthe eccentric rod 27 and bell crank 15 pivoted on the shaft 8; it also oscillates the lever 17 pivoted on the shaft 13 connected to the eccentric rod 12 which in turn oscillates the sleeve 21 and pawl 24 to engage and rotate the ratchet wheel 27 rigidly connected to the pulley 7 for driving, through belt 9 and pulley 6, the roll 5 of paper or other material.

The amount that the roll is driven during 27 in increasing amounts until the minimum slack is reached, when the pawl is effective for its entire stroke. In the event that the pawl is not capable of feeding the roll sufiiciently fast at this point, a further adjustment may be made by changing the member 19 from one of the apertures 18 to another, thereby giving a longer effective stroke to the pawl. In this manner, a constant tension is given to the paper which is positively fed at the proper rate irrespective of whether a full roll is on the spindle 5 or a roll substantially consumed. The adjustment by means of the member 19 is usually made for a particular type of work and is not changed unless the class of work differs materially.

It will be seen that the present invention provides a very inexpensive and effective mechanism for positively feedmgpaper or cardboard material to machines adapted to utilize these in the manufacture of various articles. The construction is simple and readily applicable to existing machines without material alterations therein. It eliminates strains upon the feeding mechanism and minimizes the amount of labor required to operate such machines. The device is made of few parts which, because of their rigid construction, are not easily disarranged and which are fully capable of withstanding the rough usage to which they may be subjected.

As various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the parts of the preferred embodiment described herein without departing from the spirit of the invention, it is to be understood that all matter herein is to be interpreted as illustrativeand not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. In a device of the class described, the combination of means for feeding a roll of sheet material, pawl operated means for rotating the roll, a counterbalanced arm responsive to the slack in the material between the roll and said feeding means, and a member for rendering said pawl ineffective for a portion .of its stroke, said arm being mounted on said member to act as a lever for directly operating said member in response to the slack in the material.

2. In a device of the class described, the combination of gear operated means for r0 tating a roll, a pawl for engaging said gear to rotate it, means supporting said pawl through a portion of its stroke to prevent its engagement with said gear, and a counterbalanced arm secured to said supporting means having the free end thereof resting upon and responsive to the slack in the material delivered by the roll to control the position of saic supporting means thereby to control the effective stroke of said pawl.

3. In a device of the class described, the

effective for a portion of its stroke.

4. In a device of the class described, the combination of a pulley for rotating a roll, a gear adapted to drive said pulley, a pawl adapted to drive said gear, a guard extending over said gear adapted to prevent the engagement of the pawl with the gear for a portion of its stroke, and an arm'having one end balanced upon and responsive to the slack in the sheet material and mounted at the other end on said guard and adapted to change the position of said guard thereby to change the effective operation of the stroke of the pawl.

5. In a device of the class described, the

. combination of means for feeding sheet material, a roll for supplying the sheet material, means for rotating the roll comprising a pawl and ratchet mechanism, a guard for controlling said rotating means, and means responsive to the slack in the sheet material for determining the efij'ective position of the guard to vary the stroke of the pawl and the speed of rotation of the roll said last means comprising a counterbalanced arm mounted on said guard, one end of the arm being substantially curved to conform to the normal sag of thematerialand being balanced thereon.

6. In a device of the class described, the combination of means forfeeding sheet material, a roll for supplying the sheet material, means for rotating the roll comprisinga pawl and ratchet mechanism, a guard for controlling said rotating means, and means responsive to the slack in the sheet material, position said guard and render the pawl and ratchet mechanism ineffective said last means comprising a counterbalanced arm mounted on said guard, one end of the arm being substantially curved to conform to the normal sag of the material and being balanced there- 7. A device for feeding a roll of material comprising a spindle adapted to support a roll of material, a pair :of arms pivoted to said spindle, a pair of rollers attached, respectively, to the ends of said arms adapted to bear against each other and engage a. strip of material, means for holding said rollers in contact with the strip of material, a gear attached to each roller, said gears being adapted to mesh and rotate the rollers in opposite directions to deliver the material,

, means for rotating said gears, and means for and rollers to accord substantially with the speed of feeding.

8. In a device for feeding a roll of material, the combination of a pair of pivoted arms, a pair of rollers supported by said arms and adapted to engage the opposite sides of a strip of 'material, intermeshing gears attached to said rollers for rotating said rollers in opposite directions, whereby the material is fed, means for rotating said gears, means connected to said arms for holding said gears in contact With each other and to permit said rollers to frictionally engage the material, and means for controlling said rotating means to accord substantially with the rate of feeding.

JAMES S. HARDIMAN. 

